The Corporation Apprenticeship in the 1920's

Abstract

With regard to the corporation apprenticeship in the 1920's, there exist two opposing views at present: According to one view its role is highly estimated in relation to the formation of "the prototype" of "the Japanese Employment System"; in the other, on the contrary, its retrocession at this period is stressed. The purpose of this paper is to give meaningful material to solve this problem by making clear the change from the period of WWI to the 1920's in Totei-Yoseijo, the corporation apprenticeship school, of the Hitachi Company. In the period of WWI, Yoseijo was faced by a critical situation, which was expressed in outstandingly high rates of turnover and of absence under tightening of the labor market and development of the labor movement. Removal of the influence of the labor unions in 1919-20 and the following panic of 1920, however, changed the situation drastically: the both rates sharply declined. Since these occasions, about 40% of Yoseijo graduates, presumably much more after the late 1920's, have been involved in "the Life Long Employment System". The change didn't stop here. Around the year of 1920, the workers of the Hitachi Co. were thought to be a kind of "stragglers" or "bankrupts." But such a low social status of the workers did change dramatically in the late 1920's, when Hitachi district developed as a company town through the growth of the Hitachi Co. in spite of the depression at that time. This brought a remarkable increase in the number of applicants for Yoseijo, and the competitive rate increassed nearly 10 times as much in 1930. Thus, Yoseijo could employ as apprentices those who had earned good grades at school. This, on the one hand, contributed to further decline of the rates of turnover and absence, and, on the other, made it possible to meet the need of skill based on scientific knowledge at this period.